I am desperate for a clear mind. The influence of the moon here has been driving me crazy! I can barely sleep and when I do, I have vivid dreams that I am unable to write down. I try to hold onto them but it is harder than previously thought.

There was one dream where I was sisters with someone. Another dream featured my exes but they weren't really my exes because two of them were one person and the other guy was different than he was.

I have had a busy week. Today we played lazer tag as my brothers time with me. Each member of my family reserved a day with me, as sad as that may sound. They like to do different things so we rarely so anything together as a family. My mother wanted to shop yesterday. I couldn't sleep and woke at 3 so that morning I hid at a coffee shop to avoid making noise. I woke up because I was hungry. Tuesday my brother and I went biking. We spent the day at the library then biked all over. If not Tuesday then that was Monday. Sunday was my transition day and I didn't do much. I think my dad and I watched a movie. Because I was sleep deprived from staying up to say goodbye to my roommate, I was tired out easy that day. Then Friday or later today, I have plans with my dad to do some bingo before I leave.

It has certainly been a long trip. They were very desperate for my company. Each of them seems lonely, almost as lonely as I am. Our family is sad. I want to cry thinking of how our family has lasted and goes about things.

When I was younger, I was left at home all alone a lot. The only friends that ever came over, and this is not an exaggeration, for a play date in my youth were my cousins and my neighbor. I went over to Andreas house, she never came to mine and same with Christy. I used to ole their houses because they were so warm and lively. When I slept over it was frightening because at night, no one else was awake but me. I was alone with shadows, as if I had never left home.

The times that I was alone in ,y home, I was expected to eat something, prep for the next activity which was usually volleyball, and to do my homework. A lot of times I played video games and drank soda or ate snacks that were forbidden. I got good at hiding things. Even now, I am up to my old tricks. I take pride in my treachery. My mother has only really confronted me about one thing: my neglecting of my flute. In my youth I refused to practice while she was away. Instead we would say we had and played games together, my brother and I. But then, he learned to take pride in his damn clarinet. He still covered for me, but that connections was lost. I still hate instruments. I remember the flute fondly but would never take it up ever again.

I had to learn the flute because my dad learned to play the piano in his youth. His mother forced him too and so I had to as we'll. he thought it was good for us, as if we didn't have enough to do. We were already in soccer on weekends or later swim team. The other part of the season I always had volleyball. Volleyball, ******** volleyball.

I wish that I could share my memories of the scents and excitements or emotions from these sporting events. I know not everyone did these sorts of things. Good writers are able to do this sort of thing. I hope one day I can capture it just right too. For now, please excuse my crude attempts.

My mother and I suffered a break in our relationship after fifth grade. I was so angry with her and my father, but more importantly their ways, that this once straight A and teachers choice student twice in a row was willing to flunk out of sixth grade. ,y sad attempts merely landed me bs and cs since I had never ever had a b before, let alone an f. It was in those days that I depended heavily on my friend christy and father for comfort. My brother was a friend but since he had started his interest in the clarinet, it was waning. Christy was my last connections to my friend base at Sierra gardens and I felt abandoned by Andrea. My dad was, and still is, an outcast in our family. He was like me and my friends who were all a little ,is understood and quiet. Each day he picked me up from school and drove me to volleyball or escorted me in the morning. I saw him everyday just like me and my mother had done when we were at country day, back when we were the best of friends.

On those car rides, my dad played his music and shared more of his world. The more I listened, the more I loved it. We had our own secret music to share. We played mixes of limp bizki and linkin park or pod and drowning pool, things my mother would never listen to and certainly things girls my age didn't typically listen to.my dad recorded music specifically for the two of us to enjoy on our rides. He set up recording devices to take them from the radio. The music was a great comfort.i would listen to it during tournaments or after practice, filling the time the other girls used to talk to each other.

I was not friends with them. They were the babies of the word that used makeup and cared about getting into cheer later in life. I lost Andrea to those people and would never ever become one of them. I would never be one of those kinds of girls and so I could never be one of their friends. Instead, all those mornings in the cold air, I stuck to my dad. We made camp near the other girls and I learned to occupy time with drawing or writing. As a nice girl, I shared with them food and conversation but never of my open heart.

My dad cheered me on and bought me special foods when on the road. We would rub our sleepy eyes and trudge onto the army base with sleeping bag under one arm and ice chest under the other. The cold cement floors were not a problem for long. There were always reffing jobs to be filled and food to warm my tummy. I took as many reffing jobs as I could. I said that i did not mind because I thought I was being kind and easing the burden, putting my fair share in but really I was allowing them to keep on the easy path. I allowed them to take advantage of me. We were never a team.

My goals were simply on the court: to get as many serves in a row as I could. Everything else was pie. I didn't play much because I wasn't a favorite. I didn't do the cheers right. I didn't have a set position. I was replaceable through and through. I played middle and outside and setter opposite. I even played setter at one point but never libero. I was too tall for that.

I think I have turned from my originally point. I apologize. My memories are very thick in volleyball. There were many teams and many tournaments and practices. The girls from each team were different but yet all the same. Did you know at one point my team nicknamed me after the farmhouse movie character Sybil? The mothers thought it up with their kids. It was the only thing they thought of for me. Instead of getting to know me better, they branded me for one trait: talking to myself on the court. I learned the hard way then that there are certain things you can never ever share about yourself. Never ever.

Crazy was a good color for me though. Later on when I had my nervous breakdown, they all claimed to hear me saying that I wanted to die. I know for a fact that I was saying that I wanted to run away which sounds nothing like the other. They didn't care. They were more scared than accepting. They rejected instead of trying to get to know but who could blame the innocence of teenagers and their scared mothers or fathers. Melissa and her dad stood by us nevertheless. My mother was angry with me. Heh. I was already seeing someone. I hate that year. I hate that ******** year. That year of my life is so painful. The first time I met that trainer, I ran out of the gym because I was shaking and crying with an overwhelming of emotions. When I came back in I was in trouble for trying to obey his rules of not taking emotions into the court. Feh. My mother yelled again. She yelled the first time I cried to her too. It was then that her ways became clear. As a little kid, I discovered how wrong her view was. Her world that centered on excellence and brown nosing to get what you wanted was so fake.

There are so many people that choose that world, even now, and I cannot do anything to stop them. If they like that life then so be it but it will not bring me happiness. All that spinning to get one more a or to get someone to help you to the top, I cannot do it. I cannot be fake like that. On the other hand I have hardly any qualms about lying and hiding the truth to get my way. I will hide snack and soda cans in any hook in my room to get away with it. I will write fake love notes to get someone that chance. I will lie to my friends to keep them from stopping me. I am self-centered in this way or perhaps spoiled. I will get my way!